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Sunday, February 24, 2013

Leadership Now Please...

What in the world is going on with this "sequester" business and why, as our leader, are you not driving this to a meaningful solution?This is clearly a situation requiring Presidential leadership.

These cuts were never supposed to happen this way. They were supposed to be a self-imposed, Washington-developed "threat", that would pressure lawmaker's to come up with "big-time" savings versus our current spending; savings so big they are less than 3% of our total spending (but that's another story).

Strike one: The first failure of leadership - never make a threat unless you are prepared to follow it all the way through and make sure it's actually a meaningful threat if you do.

Then, as January 1st rolled around and responsible adults in Washington seemed to be nowhere to be found, the self-imposed, voted upon deadline was merely kicked down the road till March 1st by yet another vote.

Strike two: The second failure of leadership - never put off until tomorrow, what should and can be done today.

And now, as the March 1st deadline looms large, you and your administration are proclaiming to all of us whom you serve (the very definition of leadership, by the way) how this whole "sequester" situation is going to rain mayhem onto our daily lives:

thousands of teachers and educators will lose their jobs

parents everywhere will have to scramble for child care arrangements and decide between taking care of their children or taking care of their job and incomes

Air Traffic Controllers and airport security personnel will be cut-back causing delays in our travel systems

your Transportation Secretary says it will force travelers to suffer additional delays of 90 minutes or more (beyond the typical travel hassles already inflicted on us via the TSA)

your Defense Secretary says the "sequester" will harm the readiness of US fighting forces everywhere putting us all at further risk

nearly a million Defense workers will be furloughed according to the Pentagon

medical science will be set back nearly a generation due to the "sequester" according to the former Director of the National Institutes of Health

and on, and on, and on...

Worst of all, your explanation as to why this is happening, is that it is some other elected official's fault; republican, democrat, anyone who doesn't agree with you.

Strike three: The third failure of leadership - the blame game is never a winning game and making others suffer because of the way you play the blame game, is never excusable.

Mr. President, please do your job and lead us out of this hole which you and other elected officials have dug for us. And do it before March 1st.
That would show real leadership.